


Catching Up

by Spikedluv



Category: Numb3rs
Genre: Future Fic, Incest, M/M, Post-Series, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-29
Updated: 2011-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-15 05:32:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/157527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spikedluv/pseuds/Spikedluv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Don and Charlie unexpectedly run into each other there’s some catching up to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catching Up

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my LJ Anniversary using chelletoo’s prompt: Don/Charlie, the marriage with Amita didn’t work out.
> 
> Written: January 18, 2011

Charlie was speaking with Ian Edgerton, pleased to have run into someone he knew at the conference. He’d visited the FBI training facility in Quantico before, but it was nice to have someone who was more familiar with the complex to direct him to the room he needed to be in. So far Charlie had managed to keep their conversation limited to the conference and the cases he intended to present during his seminar, including a couple that Ian himself had been involved in, and off of more personal topics, such as Don, or his marriage.

Charlie was caught up in his explanation of how he’d laid out one of the cases, and not paying the slightest bit of attention to the other agents they passed in the hallway until Ian called out, “Eppes!”

Charlie jerked his head up, thinking at first that Ian was speaking to him. His heart dropped into his stomach when his eyes met Don’s startled gaze.

“Look who I found!” Ian said, taking Charlie’s arm and drawing him forward.

“Charlie?” Don said, clearly as surprised to see Charlie, as Charlie was to see him.

“Don.” Charlie swallowed nervously. “Hey.”

“Charlie, what are you doing here?”

“I’m, uh, conducting a seminar,” Charlie managed to get out. “You know, using math to solve, uh . . . .”

“Yeah,” Don said wryly, “I know.”

“Well,” Ian said, “I’ve got to go. I’m sure Don’ll get you where you need to be.” Ian slapped both Don and Charlie on their backs. “And here I thought this was going to be a boring couple of days.”

“Me, too,” Don said, as Ian walked away and left the two of them alone, an island in a swirling sea of agents.

“What are _you_ doing here?” Charlie said before Don could ask him anything.

“I’m . . . .” Don pointed off to his left. “Heading up a seminar as well. Tactical.”

Charlie nodded. “I didn’t know that.”

If he had known, Charlie probably would have stayed as far away from the two-day training seminar as possible. He was feeling a little lightheaded at unexpectedly running into Don. Charlie needed to get away from him so he could take a breath, get himself calmed down, but he still had no idea where he was supposed to be.

Charlie opened his binder and showed Don the form with the room number printed in the upper right corner, and said, “Ian was showing me . . . .”

“This way,” Don said, reaching out and touching Charlie’s arm as he turned back the way he’d come and led Charlie down the hall. “So, did you fly in just for this?”

“No,” Charlie said, hefting his pile of papers and folders into one arm so he could wipe a suddenly sweaty palm on his slacks. “Actually, I was just up in New Jersey. At Princeton. Guest lecturer.”

“That must be neat,” Don said, “going back as a professor.”

“Yeah, it’s nice visiting again.”

“So.” Don’s voice went a little bit tight. “Is Amita here?”

“No,” Charlie said, hoping they’d find his seminar room before he started to hyperventilate. “She’s still in England. Couldn’t get away from her classes,” Charlie lied. He was getting good at it now, but Don had been the one person who could see through Charlie’s untruths.

“That’s too bad,” Don said, but Charlie thought he heard relief in Don’s voice.

“Yeah.”

Don stopped walking. “Here’s your room.”

“Thank you,” Charlie said with feeling. He’d never been so happy to reach his destination so he could get away from Don, just for a second. Charlie didn’t remember it being this hard, trying to keep his hands to himself when all he wanted to do was reach out and _touch_.

“Listen, Charlie,” Don said hesitantly. “We should get together. After your seminar, or . . . .”

“I have lunch with the Director,” Charlie said, “but yeah, sure, after . . . .” He’d have agreed to anything right then to get rid of Don before he saw the lies written all over Charlie’s face.

“See you later,” Charlie said and escaped into the seminar room. Only as he organized his notes on the podium did Charlie realize that he’d never asked about Robin.

~*~*~*~

All Charlie wanted to do after his seminar was run, get in his car and just drive, but he had lunch with the Director scheduled. He couldn’t blow that off, no matter how shaken up he was after seeing Don, especially not if he hoped to have the FBI take him back on as an expert consultant.

As soon as lunch was over Charlie fled back to his hotel room. He paced, wondering if he could afford to miss the dinner that evening, and the cocktail party preceding it where the Director had offered to introduce him to several of the Agents in Charge who were attending the training seminars.

He’d have stayed without a qualm (hadn’t originally planned to drive back to Princeton until the next morning, anyway) if he hadn’t run into Don.

It had been difficult, maintaining a distance from Don even when he was across the ocean in England. When they spoke on the phone their conversation was stilted – so much off limits. Even the simplest question, like, how are you doing, was fraught with danger.

Charlie thought about calling Larry, getting his advice, even if Charlie had to sort it out like a puzzle before he understood it, or just to take his mind off the encounter with Don. Who’d looked good. Maybe a little pale, tired, but good. Especially to someone who hadn’t seen him in nearly a year and a half.

Before Charlie could make up his mind a knock sounded at the door. Frazzled, he opened it without thinking and found Don standing on the other side.

“Don,” Charlie said, resisting the urge to slam the door closed.

“Charlie.”

“What, uh, what are you doing here?”

“I thought we were going to get together,” Don said as he pushed past Charlie and into the room.

Charlie closed the door behind Don. “Yes, of course, I just meant, how did you find me?”

“I’m an agent with the FBI,” Don said as he looked around Charlie’s room. “Besides, the FBI is putting everyone up in the same hotel.”

“Oh.”

“My room’s not quite as nice as this one, though.” Don turned his perusal onto Charlie. “Wanna tell me why you’re avoiding me?”

“I’m not!”

Don sat in the stuffed chair that sat catty corner to the matching couch. “You’re a terrible liar,” he said easily.

Charlie’s defenses went up. “I’m just doing what you wanted,” he said, “staying away from you so you could have a normal life.”

“Charlie,” Don said, his voice going soft, the way it used to when he held Charlie. “I wanted that for you, too.”

“I know you did,” Charlie said, contrite.

“So,” Don said, producing a tight smile. “How’s Amita?”

Charlie forced a cheerfulness he didn’t feel when he replied. “Great! She’s still in England. Teaching.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that.”

“Right.”

“So, teaching in England, that must be something.”

“Yeah,” Charlie agreed. “England was great. Is. Is great.”

Charlie fidgeted while Don stared at him, studied him. He searched his brain for something to say to get Don’s mind off his slip up.

“How’s Dad?” Charlie asked. “I mean, he says he’s okay, but you’re right there, so . . . .”

“Dad’s fine,” Don said, but he sounded distracted.

“Robin!” Charlie said in a last ditch effort, even though she was the last person he wanted to hear about. But she made Don happy, so Charlie would bite the bullet and paste on a fake smile as Don went on and on about her.

Guilt passed over Don’s face, but it was gone so quickly that Charlie wondered if he’d imagined it. “Good,” Don said, “she’s doing good. She left the US Attorney’s office, joined a private practice.”

“Oh, wow, that’s great,” Charlie said.

“Yeah, she’s, uh, she’s happy there.”

“Better hours, I’ll bet,” Charlie said. “You probably get to spend more time together.”

A shadow passed over Don’s face. “Not exactly,” he said. “Being new, she’s putting in extra time to impress the partners.” After a short hesitation, he added, “Besides, she’s in New York.”

“New York,” Charlie repeated, stunned. “Are you . . . moving?”

“No,” Don said.

“You’re doing the long distance thing, then?”

“We tried that for a while,” Don said. “It didn’t work out.”

Charlie blinked as the weight of those words hit him. Finally he found his voice. “Didn’t work out,” he repeated slowly. Not knowing what else to say, he asked, “Does Dad know?”

“I haven’t figured out how to tell him yet,” Don admitted.

Charlie was struck speechless. He’d spent the last year and a half away from Don (at Don’s behest), and now he found out that Don was single. Well, that he and Robin had broken up, at least. So many questions swam around in his head that Charlie didn’t know which one he wanted to ask first.

“Are you seeing anyone else?” Charlie’s mouth decided to ask for him.

“No,” Don said, “no, I’m not . . . .”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Charlie interrupted.

“Because you were happy with Amita,” Don said. “I didn’t want to ruin that.”

Charlie gave a bitter laugh. “If you thought I was _happy_ ,” he spat, “then you wouldn’t have been able to _ruin_ anything.”

“No, Charlie, I just meant that I didn’t want you feeling bad for me, worrying about me, instead of living your life.”

Charlie didn’t say anything; he didn’t know what _to_ say to that.

“When do you leave?” Don said. “To go back to England?”

“I don’t,” Charlie said. “I mean . . . Princeton.”

“Oh, right, guest lecturing,” Don said. “So how long will you be at Princeton?”

“Til the end of the semester.”

“And then you’re going back?”

“Actually, no,” Charlie said, “I’m not going back.”

“Amita’s coming home, then?”

“No, she’s got another semester at Cambridge.”

“What are you going to do?” Don asked, frowning.

“I was talking to the Director about consulting for the FBI on a full-time basis.”

“So, you guys are going to move back to LA?”

“Not exactly.”

“Charlie, what . . . what aren’t you telling me?”

Since Don was no longer with Robin, there really wasn’t any reason not to tell him, so Charlie said, “Amita and I have separated.”

“Charlie, why? I mean, i thought you two were happy together.”

“We tried, Don, _I_ tried, but it was never going to work because she wasn’t who I wanted, not really.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because _you_ wanted that, the white picket fence and being _normal_.”

“I thought _you_ wanted that,” Don snapped back.

“I never wanted that,” Charlie said, “I wanted . . . other things.”

“But, Charlie, you said . . . .”

“No.” Charlie pointed angrily at Don. “You said. You said I should have that, but I never wanted that.”

“So,” Don said slowly, expressions flashing across his face as he processed what he’d just learned. “ _Are_ you coming back to LA?”

“I don’t know,” Charlie said. “The Director and I were talking about having me be available to any field office that needs me, but working out of a central location, maybe here in D.C.”

“Charlie,” Don said, speaking Charlie’s name in a way he hadn’t said it in years.

Charlie shivered as the sense memory of the touch that always accompanied that tone slid up and down his spine on ghostly fingers.

“Don,” Charlie said, part suspicion, part warning.

“Charlie,” Don said again, rising up out of the chair and advancing on Charlie.

Charlie swatted at Don as he backed away from him. “This is all your fault.”

“Charlie.” Don reached for him.

Charlie batted Don’s hand away. “Your _fault_!”

“Charlie.”

This time Don caught Charlie’s hand. He gave Charlie a smirk that made Charlie’s cock swell, and began to reel him in. He buried his other hand in Charlie’s hair and tipped his head back.

“I’ve missed you,” Don said.

“Your fault,” Charlie said one more time, but it came out weak.

“I think you should move back to LA,” Don said, and then he claimed Charlie’s lips before Charlie could form a reply.

Charlie thought (very briefly) about fighting Don, just for the principle of it, but he’d been missing this, and dreaming about this, and now that it was within his grasp he wasn’t going to wait any longer. Charlie parted his lips to Don’s tongue and met it with his own.

Charlie moaned at the first taste of Don. He reached for Don with his free hand and clutched at his shirt. Don let go of Charlie’s hand and curled his arm around Charlie’s back so he could pull him in close.

When they broke for air, Don said worriedly, “Charlie, you’ve lost weight.”

“I’ve just been busy,” Charlie said, though the real truth was that he’d been unhappy, so he’d kept himself busy so he wouldn’t have time to miss Don.

“You need Dad’s pot roast.”

“Really? You’re bringing up Dad now?”

“I’m just listing all the reasons I can think of for you to come home to LA.”

“I only need one,” Charlie said.

“Charlie,” Don said softly, and then, “I hope the Director wasn’t going to introduce you to anyone important at the cocktail party tonight,” as he drew Charlie over to the bed.

“I’ll just tell him I was catching up with my brother,” Charlie said as he let Don press him to the mattress. “I’m sure he’ll understand.”

The End


End file.
